It is known to use apparatus to provide resistance during the performance of one or more movements in order to rehabilitate patient injuries such as those resulting from stroke or other injury, for use with paraplegic patients or to train individuals and to build the necessary muscle tone, muscle endurance and strength to participate in sports, such as distance running, racquet sports, golf and the like.
A number of resistance devices are incorporated into large exercise equipment suitable for use in a clinic or training facility however range of motion may be limited by the structure of the equipment. Further, access to the equipment is limited to pre-booked appointments or availability and the patient or person wishing to use the equipment must repeatedly travel to its location in order to perform the necessary exercises.
In order to increase compliance and to make resistance equipment more readily available, a number of portable resistance devices have been created. Such devices are taught, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,147,832 to Thompson, 4,557,480 to Dudley, 4,871,165 to Marshall et al., 5,709,637 to Gow et al., 5,876,310 to Mackey et al., 6,149,559 to Mackey, 6,770,014 to Amore and US published patent application 2002/00866779 to Wilkinson.
Typically, known portable resistance devices may be connectable to a fixed structure such as a door or to the floor or may be connected to a portion of the user's body, during use. In most cases, a tensile member is releasably mounted on a reel and is placed under tension by some form of tensioning means, such that when the user pulls on an end of the tensile member, the tension member is released from the reel along a path from a fixed point on the apparatus and relative to the movement performed by the user.
There is interest in the industry to find additional resistance devices which provide a large range of motion enabling treatment for a wide variety of injuries and training for a wide variety of sports, as well as adjustable tensioning of the tensile member and connection to a variety of surfaces including various body parts and stationary surfaces such as walls and doors to provide the widest use possible in a portable device.